September 2006

Just in response to the New York Times’ smear campaign against Wal-Mart this month, I’d like to say that because I’m in New York for a few months and therefore not within reach of a Wal-Mart, I ended up having to go to K-Mart when I needed to buy a laundry rack. Normally a $10 or $15 item, the only one available was the $35 Martha Stewart version. I had no choice and bought it. On my way to the register I picked up the cheapest nightgown I could find, and a boxed Playtex bra. End of story: $73.

This is why Wal-Mart needs to take over. Or is this the “mom and pop” shop that New Yorkers are protecting from Wal-Mart?

For the record, Wal-Mart would never screw me like that. A simple laundry rack: $9. Cheapest nighty: $7.99. Playtex bra: $20. Total cost: about half of K-Mart’s.

Wal-Mart is a non-union shop, and every time I go there, you know what I observe the workers doing? Working! It’s also the only place where the employees don’t run the other way when they see you coming. And where they’re pleasant even at 2 a.m. — plus it’s got immigrant employees who speak better English than the customers. What a country! I mean — store! Even a mentally disabled Wal-Mart associate enthusiastically answered my question. People, a retarded Wal-Mart employee is more helpful than a mentally competent employee some place else!

And apparently, Wal-Mart is inspiring enough that people want to work there for free. Remember the story last year of the Drake University student who was doing a term paper on Wal-Mart and lived there for 41 hours? When he was bored, he’d start tidying up, putting things back where they belonged, and he later applied for a job.

We’ve seen a lot of interviews with miserable or digruntled ex-Wal-Mart employees, but it seems to me like if you’re not happy working at Wal-Mart, maybe it’s because you’re just not happy working?

How is it that Wal-Mart is “lowering area standards” when every time one opens up, 6,000-25,000 people apply for 300-400 jobs? They obviously didn’t have jobs with standards to lower. Meanwhile, mom-and-pop stores employ, like, three people. To quote Chris Rock from his last HBO special, “When white people get wealthy, they open Wal-Marts so that other people can get some money.” Chris Rock gets it.

Isn’t it better for a million people to be employed and for millions more to pay less than for millions to pay more so that a few thousand can be overpaid? Besides, if everyone was unionized and getting the royal salaries, most people would be unemployed.

Traditionally, the socialist aim has been the good of the many at the expense of the few. But for Wal-Mart, they make an exception and reverse it. Meanwhile, using the free market, Wal-Mart is doing a nice job of redistributing wealth, which these people otherwise root for.

In addition to its “community works” program, Wal-Mart helps fight crime. Not only did a Wal-Mart security camera directly lead to the capture of the two Phoenix serial killers last month, but looking around at some of the store’s seedier customers, I’d bet they save so much money shopping at Wal-Mart, they haven’t had to rob anyone in years.

But big business can’t win, apparently: Profiteering — bad! Lower prices — also bad! Now it’s called “pushing out the little guy” — who charges a dollar for an orange.

I saw a girl in New York with a T-shirt that said: “Wal-Mart — Not in this city!” And maybe she’s right. Maybe New Yorkers don’t deserve a Wal-Mart. If they prefer to pay triple the price for wilted lettuce, let them.

Besides, there’s no room for a Wal-Mart with the UN taking up 17 acres. The crumbling international body is looking for a $1 billion renovation. I’ll give ‘em a renovation: “Mr. Annan, tear down this building! And put up a Wal-Mart.” At least that’d be useful. (Seventeen acres should be almost enough, no? They could build a mini Wal-Mart.) This shrine to capitalism could solve global poverty a lot faster than the UN will.

So come on and shop Wal-Mart. With more than 8,000 greedy lawsuits pending against it, it actually needs your money.

There’s a new children’s book out on the market, called “Why Mommy is a Democrat.” Its description reads:

Why Mommy is a Democrat brings to life the core values of the Democratic party in ways that young children will easily understand and thoroughly enjoy. Using plain and non-judgmental language, along with warm and whimsical illustrations, this colorful 28-page paperback depicts the Democratic principles of fairness, tolerance, peace, and concern for the well-being of others. It’s a great way for parents to gently communicate their commitment to these principles and explain their support for the party.

Why Mommy is a Democrat may look like a traditional children’s book, but it definitely isn’t just for children. With numerous subtle (and not-so-subtle) satirical swipes at the Bush administration and the Republican party [again, non-judgmental], Why Mommy will appeal to Democrats of all ages!

“Core values of the Democratic party”? Like sex and fine dining? At least “warm and whimsical” is appropriate enough: A 2001 study comparing the dreams of sleeping Republicans to those of sleeping Democrats found the following:

‘Republicans are nearly three times as likely as Democrats to experience nightmares when they dream,’ Kelly Bulkeley, who teaches at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, claims…Sleeping Republicans inhabit scarier dreamlands, according to Bulkeley. Aggression, misfortune, and physical threats characterize Republican nightmares, while familiar settings and friendly characters populate the kinder, gentler bad dreams of Democrats… ‘My speculation is that people on the right are very attuned to the dangers in the world, and they’re seeking ways to defend themselves against those threats,’ Bulkeley said.

The findings were released two months before 9/11.

Meanwhile, “the Democratic principles of fairness, tolerance, peace, and concern for the well-being of others” (which Democrats have the monopoly on) are all very relevant when a jihad has been declared against your society.

“It’s a great way for parents to gently communicate their commitment to these principles and explain their support for the party.” As opposed to the usual, less gentle tactics of schlepping the kids to anti-war rallies and painting them signs with exclamations about the CIA and “Bush=Hitler,” and putting them in commercials about global warming or commercials where they ask Bush for “more arsenic in my water, please” and “more salmonella in my eggs.”

Notice the book is about why Mommy is a Democrat and not Daddy. Obviously, the author knows on some level that male Democrats tend to be pansies. Where’s Daddy, anyway? Is this about single Mommy? ‘Cause that’s probably why she’s a Democrat.

So, why is Mommy a Democrat? Because Mommy needs the government to wipe her tushy? Because Mommy wants to abort Baby’s future siblings? Because Mommy doesn’t know we’re at war? Because, like many other women, Mommy is attracted to girly politics?

All that aside, this book is redundant: Kids are naturally drawn to the Democratic party, anyway — because it’s an actual party. (As the White House butler told my friends during one of the Clinton fiestas: “I never did see any administration throw more parties than this one.”) Children stay Democrats through college. Eventually, once they realize there’s an actual order to be kept in the world, many of them grow up and switch to the Republican party.

The difference between the two parties is that people grow into conservative politics; they grow out of liberal ones.

If I were smarter, I’d be a Democrat. It would save me so much thinking. My biggest worries would be warm weather and George Bush’s Christianity. Boy am I a sucker.

I now understand why when a liberal crosses over to the Right, it’s called “waking up,” while when a Republican crosses over to the Left, it’s more like going to sleep. And really, he needs a nap — because he’s freakin’ tired of reality. It’s a case of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join em.” A Repub switching to Dem, on the other hand, isn’t waking up; he’s giving up.

The AP reported last week that two siblings, ages 75 and 81, who escaped the Holocaust, have been reunited after 65 years. Given today’s realities, namely that we’re in the 1930s all over again, the reunion can be summed up thus: “You found each other? Good, now drop dead.”

Consider that as early as 1979, President Jimmy Carter exclaimed, “I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust!”

Imagine — Jews were only 34 years out of the killing machine that eliminated 1/3 of their race, they were still trying to find lost family, and he’d had enough. Can you picture what would have ensued if a politician said he was sick and tired of hearing about slavery — which in 1979 had ended 113 years earlier?

Most Holocaust survivors couldn’t even bring themselves to talk about their Holocaust experiences until Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation came along in the mid 1990s. And already the world is like, “OK, that’s enough out of you; quit yer whining.”

Just as a small p.s. to the recently passed fifth anniversary of 9/11, it’s worth addressing the sentiment we’ve heard repeatedly over the past four years — namely, that we’ve “squandered all the good will that came our way” from the world after 9/11.

Essentially, this means that if you’re a liberal on 9/11 and you see airplanes crashing into our buildings, you’re thinking, “They’ll like us! They’ll like us! They’ll really, really like us!” It’s almost surprising that libs haven’t coordinated with al Qaeda to keep that good will coming.

They were upset when we invaded Iraq, warning that it would anger Muslims. But the latter are either mad and bombing us, or they’re not mad — and bombing us. Do you really care which it is? A liberal does. Because a liberal doesn’t mind getting bombed, just as long as no one gets mad.

What Golda Meir said about the Jews applies here as well: “The world is with us when we are dying. We prefer to live.”

“Following the macaca episode,” a reporter asked Virginia Senator George Allen last week, “the Jewish press printed stories that appeared on the Internet that explored your possible Jewish ancestry on your mother’s side. You’ve been quoted as saying your mother is not Jewish.”

I understand the reporter’s intent to have been an exploration of whether Allen has even less sensitivity to ethnic minorities than the “macaca episode” might imply. However, it’s likely to turn into something more insidious as anti- “Zionists” everywhere take her segue from Allen’s use of “macaca” to his being Jewish as an implication that Jews are racist. Before we know it — since Israel is the “racist, Zionist entity” — his “Jewish blood,” as CNN repeatedly called it during an inquisition of Allen’s roots, will somehow add to his culpability.

Even if we don’t publicly hear this connection being made, rest assured that many have already made it. So I would just like to preemptively remind everyone that half the man is NOT Jewish, and there’s no reason to assume that the Jewish half was responsible for the “macaca” comment.

After all, remember what people were saying (and writing) about Monica Lewinsky — that she single-handedly did away with the stereotype that Jewish girls don’t “go down.” But it turned out Lewinsky was only 3/4 Jewish, and I argued that it was the one quarter that made her do it.

My friend Heather, who is Jewish, got an email advertisement today from Telecharge, the premier ticket-buying service for Broadway and off-Broadway shows. This one was offering a last-chance special price of $49.50 for tickets to “My Name is Rachel Corrie,” the play about the dead American extremist who interfered with an Israeli military operation that was destroying tunnels used to smuggle weapons that are used against civilian targets.

“What are these morons thinking!” remarked Heather, “sending this advertisement out to ‘Hymie-town?’” (If you recall, that was what Jesse Jackson dubbed the heavily Jewish-populated New York metropolitan area.)

Indeed, is the world so accustomed to Jews as self-loathers, to Jews voting against their own self-interests, to the Jewish over-enlightenment that brings about their self-destruction — the citadel of which is the Jewish-owned, anti-Semitic New York Times?

A short two years after her death, Rachel Corrie’s story was already in production, to be shared with the world. Meanwhile, six years since my sister’s death, her brilliant autobiographical novel still doesn’t have any takers — apparently because she didn’t die trying to help get Jews killed.

Watching the mini-series “Path to 9/11″ last week, I couldn’t help but marvel at how convincingly the many Middle Eastern actors played terrorists. One character, Ramzi Yousef, who orchestrated the 1993 WTC bombing, was said to have become a radical because it was the only industry, and the only route out of poverty. But the great acting in this film (and I’m giving many of the Middle Easterners in it the benefit of the doubt by calling it “acting”), gives me an idea for how we can beat this radicalism.

With the number of movies dealing with terrorism increasing in direct proportion to real terrorism, the terror film genre is set to outpace the horror film genre, as Hollywood struggles to keep up with current realities. Given the sheer quantities of Middle Eastern actors needed for each of these projects, and the fact that there will be decades of such productions, this means the emergence of a whole new, productive, profitable industry for glory-seeking would-be terrorists and professional radicals: show business. And apparently, very little professional acting instruction is required.

The most successful of these actors could be tapped for endorsement deals and even public service announcements: “I’m not a terrorist. But I play one on TV. Don’t do terror.”